Morning People Are Actually Happier Than Night Owls

Below:

Next story in Science

Night owls often wake up for work or school with a scowl on their
faces and wishing for an IV drip of coffee, while morning people
come skipping in 15 minutes early. However, morning people aren't
chipper just as the sun is coming up; they are happier and more
satisfied with life overall, a new study suggests.

Teenagers' night owl tendencies fade as they age, and the study
says this switch to a morning-focused schedule could be why
older adults are happier than younger ones.

"Past research has suggested that
morning-type people report feeling happier than evening-type
people, and this research was only on young adults," study
researcher Renee Biss, a graduate student at the University of
Toronto, told LiveScience.

Early birds

The new study looked across the lifespan to see if the morning
habits of older individuals contributed to their overall life
outlook.

The researchers studied two populations: a group of 435 adults
ages 17 to 38, and a group of 297 older adults, ages 59 to 79.
Both groups filled out questionnaires about their emotional
state, how healthy they feel and their preferred "time of day."
[ Life's
Extremes: Early Birds vs. Night Owls ]

By age 60, most people are morning types, the researchers found.
Only about 7 percent of young adults are morning larks, but as
the population ages, this switches — in the older years only
about 7 percent of the population are
still night owls.

"We found that older adults reported greater positive emotion
than younger adults, and older adults were more likely to be
morning-type people than younger adults," Biss said. "The
'morningness' was associated with greater happiness emotions in
both age groups."

Social jet lag

Morning-type people also tended to say they felt healthier than
did night owls. The researchers said this could be because they
are getting better sleep since they are naturally morning people.
It could not only make them feel more alert, but actually impact
their immune system.

"We don’t know why this is, but there are a few potential
explanations. Evening people may be more prone
to social jet lag ; this means that their biological clock is
out of sync with the social clock," Biss said. "Society's
expectations are far more organized around a morning-type
person's schedule."

For instance, most people rise early for work or school, even if
they don't like it. "An evening person may go through their week
feeling unhappy because they have to get up earlier than they
would like to," Biss said.

One easy happiness booster? Hack your sleep schedule to turn
yourself into a morning person. "One way to do it is to increase
your natural
light exposure early in the morning, and to wake up earlier
and go to bed earlier," Biss said. "It's easiest if you have a
consistent schedule, to make sure you are waking up at the same
time every day."